Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

The Islamic Madness Persists

By Alan
Caruba

The lull
in the coverage of all things Islamic was broken by two terrorist attacks in
Canada, a reminder that so long as the world does not unite to destroy the
Islamic State, we shall all remain vulnerable. A “lone wolf” terrorist can kill
you just as dead as one in a terrorist organization, particularly one
encouraging these attacks.

While the
media’s herd mentality continues to report about Ebola in West Africa and gears
up for massive coverage of the forthcoming November 4 midterm elections, the
Middle East remains in a low state of boil, never failing to produce bombings,
skirmishes, and the usual inhumanities we associate with Islam.

Americans
pay attention to the Middle East only when blood is flowing and at the present
time the only element generating that is the Islamic State (ISIS) which
continues to attack Kobani in northern Syria and assault the Yazidis and other
targets in Iraq. The U.S., Britain and France are bombing ISIS forces, largely
to protect and assist the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, the only fighting force of any
consequence.

Virtually unreported
are the 18 million Muslim refugees throughout out the Middle East. The U.N.
reports that these and internally displaced persons reflect the turmoil in
Afghanistan, Iraq. Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. To grasp this,
think about what either the U.S. or Europe would be like with a comparable
number of refugees.

As David
P. Goldman, a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Wax
Family Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, noted October 20 on the Forum
website, “That is cause for desperation: unprecedented numbers of people have
been torn from traditional society and driven from their homes, many with
little but the clothes on their backs.”

“There are
millions of young men in the Muslim world sitting in refugee camps with nothing
to do, nowhere to go back to, and nothing to look forward to…never has an
extremist movement had so many frustrated and footloose young men in its
prospective recruitment pool.”

So what
does John Kerry, our Secretary of State, think is the greatest problem in the
Middle East? While discussing the ISIS coalition with Middle East leaders,
Kerry expressed the opinion a week ago that the Israeli-Palestine situation was
the real problem. Apparently he is unaware that there is no Palestinian state
and never has been. The one on the West Bank exists thanks to Israeli support
and the one in Gaza, controlled by Hamas, provoked Israeli defense measures by
rocketing it for months.

Prof.
Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a
Shillman/Ginsberg fellow at the Middle East Forum, has a quite different point
of view. “In reality, however, the novelty of the Islamic State, as well as the
magnitude of the threat it poses, are greatly exaggerated.”

Noting
that many of the Arab states have “failed to modernize and deliver basic
services” Prof. Inbar has little anticipation that ISIS could do that either.
Moreover “Much of the fragmented Arab world will be busy dealing with its
domestic problems for decades, minimizing the possibility that it will turn
into a formidable enemy for Israel or the West.”

What has
seemed to escape Kerry’s and the President’s attention is the threat of a
nuclear armed Iran. The negotiations to encourage Iran to step back from its
efforts to create the warheads for its missiles do not appear to promise a
favorable outcome. Iran managed to get some sanctions lifted and that was
likely why Iran entered into them. They don’t care what the West or the rest of
the Middle East wants.

Neither
Israel, nor Saudi Arabia are as naïve as the U.S. In March, Richard
Silverstein, writing in Tikun Olam, reported that “the level of intense
cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia in targeting Iran has become clear.
Saudi Arabia isn’t just coordinating its own intelligence efforts with Israel.
It’s actually financing a good deal of Israel’s very expensive campaign against
Iran.” A recent explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility suggests that the campaign
is still quite active.

Noting
“airtight military censorship in Israel”, Silverstein pointed out that
information about the Israeli-Saudi relationship would not have been reported
in an Israeli daily newspaper, Maariv, if both governments did not want Iran
and the U.S. to know. In effect, the Saudis have replaced the U.S. as a source
of support given President Obama’s barely concealed dislike of Israel.

“But
Israel,” wrote Silverstein, “isn’t going to war tomorrow.” Israel will watch
the outcome of the U.S.-Iran negotiations and determine what action to take or
not at that point. Meanwhile, it will keep the pressure on Iran with its covert
program.

At some
point the news media will begin to pay more attention to the Middle East. It
will not get much cooperation, however, from ISIS because the Islamic State has
made it clear that only journalists that obey its rules and write what it wants
will live very long.

The
“religion of peace”, Islam, has not produced much peace in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world for
the last 1,400 years.

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.